Jodi Hills

So this is who I am – a writer that paints, a painter that writes…

Tag Archives: adventure


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In the birdsong.

Maybe nature knows, how the gifts are only borrowed. From nest to song, how it’s all impermanent. We’re given everything we need between sky and tree, but it has always been for the sharing. We were meant to live in the birdsong.

I think all creative ideas (and I’m including love here, perhaps topping the list) are like dandelion seeds floating on a summer breeze, with the bravest of barefoot children chasing them, stretching to pluck them from the blue, knowing if they don’t, there are countless chubby legs running behind and beside, willing to make the journey. And just as the summer child borrows the fleeting day, I gather the words and the paint, into the shape of love, and hope and try and pray it makes it to the next season.

Painting in a new room yesterday, brush in hand, I sang along with each stroke, the Christmas songs so generously lent to me, to us, each year. Within the music, somewhere on the canvas, I am suspended in time, in the gift of the moment. No doors of advent are opening. No rushing toward the next. I’m catch myself in the song of the bird, in a moment of happiness, and I find myself in the most wonderous gift of all. I know I won’t keep the painting. It must be shared. Chubby summer legs will be waiting.

The gift we only borrowed.
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New!

I don’t think it’s too spot on that this city is called New — New York. Every time I come here it does feel new, and probably more importantly, so do I! “Ok,” I ask myself, “what are you going to see, learn, create from all of this?” Because it’s easy to lose the magic. Magic relies on both the magician and the viewer – you have to want to see it. And, oh, how I want to see it, be it! I always have – probably because I grew up with a magician.

When I was a little girl, we heard the tales of New York, Paris… heard that everyone dresses up there — everything is elevated. I’ve been to both cities, many, many times, and it may not be completely true any more, not for everyone, but I still believe in it — this dressing for success — I suppose my mother taught me that. And it was never about “putting on airs”, it was more about being good enough, and I don’t mean for “them,” (whoever they are) I mean proving to yourself that you are in fact good enough, good and enough, more than enough to walk along, beside, within, outside, along, every day in this world.

When I was a teenager, inside our humble apartment, each morning before 7am, my mother worked her own magic. She pulled out a neatly hung ensemble from her small bedroom closet, freshly ironed, and got dressed for the Superintendent’s Office of School district 206. She was tall and thinned by angry words that no woman should ever hear. But she was beautiful. Beautiful because she made the choice to release herself from the pain, and become new! She made the choice, every day, to present her best self. And I smiled and cheered, front row.

So today I will walk down this New York street with my head held high, out of respect for my mother, my self, and this magical new day!!!! As the song says, “It’s a new dawn, a new day, it’s a new life, and I’m feelin’ good!”

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To travel

When I lived in Minneapolis, about the only travel I could afford, was “in time.” Life was deliciously full of work and friends and art, but every once in a while, when the walls started closing in, my friend Deb and I would decide it was time to take a trip. To Cottagewood. It was only about 15 minutes in distance, but years back in time.  Founded in 1895, tucked gently on the shores of Lake Minnetonka, this quiet community, survived a tornado, and the chipping away of progress. It still had the same General Store, selling gasoline, coffee and candy. 

We would arrive on a Saturday summer morning, buy a coffee, walk past the Texaco pump, and stroll through the gardens, or along the lake. People still put flags on porches, rested baby dolls on chairs in the yard, leaned bicycles against railings and left pails in the sand on the beach. There was so much life, in all of this quiet. It felt sacred and secure. Loving. Safe. Enduring. Without time. There was no need for hurry, or worry. It was built to stroll. In all of this calm, I found an energy to create. I painted the old Texaco pump. I painted the mailboxes, and inserted my name, so I could be a part of it all. Just as my grandmother had made quilts, inserting our old clothes, so we would be a part of the story.


I love to travel. This is how we find the stories of the world, and create a story of our own. Sometimes when I say that, people respond, “well, I have no money, no time, I can’t go anywhere…”  My response is this. When I was a child, taking care of myself during summer vacation, I would pack a lunch in a brown paper bag, fill my book bag, my water bottle, and walk into the farmer’s golden field behind our house. I brought back wild stories to tell my dolls and the neighbor girls. I traveled. When I was older, with no money (but not poor) I would travel to Cottagewood on a quiet summer morning, and travel, not only in space, but in time, in my heart, and in my soul. 


I was lucky enough that my art brought me to new places. Chicago. New York. Then my heart brought me even farther, to France, and all around the world.


The stories my grandmother made still lie around our house in Aix en Provence. The painting of the mailboxes greets people at our front door. The gas pump still leans in our yellow room. I took a stroll around our yard this morning and knew that in all this calm, there would be a space to create. A painting. A love. A life.

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